Bryan Caplan wrote: The more fundamental reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the > Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in MERIT. If there > were no efficiency consequences, why not equalize incomes? The answer, > I maintain, is that more able and hard-working people deserve more. > They earned it. It is insolent for the less successful to gripe about > it (or for the more successful to gripe on their behalf!).
I think a better reason to be "hard-hearted" is that the "Principle of Equity fails to recognize differences in individual preferences and valuations, rather than differences in merit (i.e. differences in the moral character of an action). Of course, if your "merit" ranking is the same as your preference ranking, then there's no problem - but this will rarely be the case. For example, I simply have no idea about the moral character of the actions of the individuals who have made Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. All I care about is how much I value a doughnut, relative to other goods. Other people might hate doughnuts, and so they will have different valuations. Who knows - maybe everyone hates Krispy-Kreme doughnuts, even though the people who make them are "able and hard-working people who deserve more" than the people who make, say, Twinkies. If I did hate doughnuts, but I thought that "able and hard-working people deserve more", should I buy the doughnut? No: it would be inefficient for me to do so. So there is no necessary connection between efficiency and merit. As Hayek states on page 96 of The Constitution of Liberty: "We do not wish people to earn a maximum of merit but to achieve a maximum of usefulness at a minimum of pain and sacrifice and therefore a minimum of merit." and on page 97: "A society in which the position of the individuals was made to correspond to human ideas of moral merit would be the exact opposite of a free society" Alex Robson ANU
